A touch screen refers to an electronic display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within a display area of the touch screen. A touch/touching generally refers to contact made by a finger, hand, or other body part, but may also refer to contact via objects, such as a stylus. The use of touch screen technology is common in devices such as game consoles and game console controllers, all-in-one computers, tablet computers, and smartphones.
Touch screens allow a user to interact directly with what is being displayed, rather than indirectly with a pointer/cursor controlled by a peripheral control device, such as a mouse. Additionally, that direct interaction may be effectuated without requiring any intermediate device that would need to be held in the hand (other than a stylus, which is optional for most modern touch screens). A device having a touch screen is able to respond to a user's touch, and convey information about that touch to a control circuit of the device. The touch screen of the device is often combined with a generally coextensive display device, such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), to form a user interface for the portable device.
Relative to devices that include a keypad, rollerball, joystick, and/or mouse, a device employing touch screen technology may reduce moving parts, increase durability, increase resistance to contaminants, simply user interaction and increase user interface flexibility.